This paper will explore how track and field athletes are currently using social media, what types of social media attract or repel sponsorship and what barriers and opportunities exist for social media use in the sport of track and field. A variety of different sources will be used including academic papers, interviews with community managers from Saucony and Brooks and social media publications. / text

Big Bend Coffee Roasters (BBCR) is a small business in Marfa, Texas offering high quality, Fair Trade and organic coffee. Primarily, the business operates as a wholesale roaster catering to small-to-medium size coffee shops across the country, but primarily in the Texas region. While the wholesale business is the core business model of BBCR, the company would like to pursue retail sales online. Currently, there is no marketing plan in place. This report is a one-year marketing plan incorporating the entire 2013 strategy and implementation with the following goals: 1) raise brand awareness in Texas, and 2) increase retail sales of BBCR coffee and products. / text

Social networking and social media technologies have greatly changed the way information is created and transmitted. Social media has made content contribution an efficient approach for individual brand building. With abundant user generated content and social networks, content consumers are constantly subject to social influence. Such social influence can be further utilized to encourage pro-social behavior. Chapter 1 examines the incentives for content contribution in social media. We propose that exposure and reputation are the major incentives for contributors. Besides, as more and more social media websites offer advertising-revenue sharing with some of their contributors, shared revenue provides an extra incentive for contributors who have joined revenue-sharing programs. We develop a dynamic structural model to identify a contributor's underlying utility function from observed contribution behavior. We recognize the dynamic nature of the content-contribution decision--that contributors are forward-looking, anticipating how their decisions impact future rewards. Using data collected from YouTube, we show that content contribution is driven by a contributor's desire for exposure, revenue sharing, and reputation and that the contributor makes decisions dynamically. Chapter 2 examines how social influence impact individuals' content consumption decisions in social network. Specifically, we consider social learning and network effects as two important mechanisms of social influence, in the context of YouTube. Rather than combining both social learning and network effects under the umbrella of social contagion or peer influence, we develop a theoretical model and empirically identify social learning and network effects separately. Using a unique data set from YouTube, we find that both mechanisms have statistically and economically significant effects on video views, and which mechanism dominates depends on the specific video type. Chapter 3 studies incentive mechanism to improve users' pro-social behavior based on social comparison. In particular, we aim to motivate organizations to improve Internet security. We propose an approach to increase the incentives for addressing security problems through reputation concern and social comparison. Specifically, we process existing security vulnerability data, derive explicit relative security performance information, and disclose the information as feedback to organizations and the public. To test our approach, we conducted a field quasi-experiment for outgoing spam for 1,718 autonomous systems in eight countries. We found that the treatment group subject to information disclosure reduced outgoing spam approximately by 16%. Our results suggest that social information and social comparison can be effectively leveraged to encourage desirable behavior. / text

Christianity has a long history that often became intertwined with the development of modern day media. This paper aims to draw a comparison between the use of Christianity as a marketing device during the Middle Ages and modern times. Using McLuhan’s timeline of media epochs we are able to trace the changes of media through human history. This timeline provides us the means to analyze the ways in which Christianity was used as a marketing device to advance the adoption of new mediums. The Middle Ages’ reliance on Christian networks to spread information enabled Gutenberg to gain widespread adoption of his printing press. The recent transition to the electronic age also shows how new mediums can use this same network to perpetuate messages. In modern times the electronic age has reproduced an environment conducive to the spread of Christian messages. Social media networks like Twitter exhibit increased interaction levels among prominent Christian leaders. The comparison of these two periods in time showcases the strength of the Christian network, even today. Furthermore it provides evidence of the prediction made by McLuhan that the interconnectedness of the electronic age would bring about a new type of oral tribe culture. This global village brought about by the Internet allows ancient communication practices to flourish once more. / text

Learning engagement is essential for fruitful and meaningful learning outcomes. Although many researchers have collectively claimed that social networking technologies in the Web2.0 era possess great potential to foster learning engagement, the existing literature demonstrates the pedagogical significance of more empirical and systematical inquiries into their applications for effective teaching and learning in various educational contexts. A social networking environment (SNE) is an online environment established with these technologies in which various tools, people and resources are dynamically connected. This study aimed to investigate the roles of such an environment in supporting learning engagement in higher education, and to identify factors that affected how students engaged in learning activities in the SNE. Informed by the literature on knowledge construction, collaborative learning and intrinsic motivation, learning engagement was conceptualized as a multidimensional construct that incorporated cognitive, social and emotional components of the learning process. This study was a single case study. It spanned a period of six months with a class of 55 undergraduate students enrolling in an elective university course in mainland China. A SNE, which integrated blogs, wikis, social bookmarks and tagging, file repositories, group spaces, and social networking facilities, was implemented to support designed learning activities that emphasized reflections and social interactions for achieving course objectives. Data collection and analysis combined qualitative and quantitative methods. Multiple-source data was obtained from interviews, observation, questionnaires and student learning artifacts, and was analyzed through content analysis, social network analysis and descriptive statistical analysis. The analysis revealed a number of roles that the SNE could play in supporting learning engagement. In terms of social engagement, it could serve as a social medium for (a) facilitating self-presentation and self-expression, (b) supporting articulation and development of personal social networks, (c) encouraging various levels of participation in social interactions, and (d) enabling personalized feedback. In terms of cognitive engagement, it could afford a hybrid of individual and social learning by (a) supporting development of personal learning portfolios, (b) facilitating peer and teacher feedback, and (c) creating the transparency in a distributed learning environment which enabled students to access multiple perspectives, learn by observation, and utilize metacognitive skills for self-regulated learning. In terms of emotional engagement, it could be used as a vehicle for developing a socio-affective structure of the learning community by (a) inducing expression of emotions and feelings, (b) fostering socio-emotional interactions, and (c) contributing a sense of being connected to others. Factors in cultural, socio-contextual, technical, and individual dimensions were identified that affected learning engagement in the SNE and needed to be addressed in pedagogical interventions. This study has both theoretical and practical implications. By proposing a construct incorporating cognitive, social and emotional elements of engaged learning, it deepens our understanding of the relationship between learning engagement and educational use of social networking technologies in higher education. For practicing teachers, a set of pedagogical principles is suggested based on the findings of the study for facilitating learning engagement in the SNE. Implications for software designers and educational administrators are also discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This video series and report act as an educational tool to help small to mid-sized nonprofits use social media in the most beneficial way for their organization, by offering advice and tactics based on actual stories from nonprofits in Austin, Texas. As the landscape of marketing and media changes, nonprofits must be willing to utilize social media for their development strategies, event planning, volunteer recruitment and engagement, and have an up to date social media policy. Six nonprofit organizations tell their success stories and discuss the importance of integrating social media into their marketing strategies and campaigns. / text

Social media is developing rapidly and China has become the largest market of social media usage. Due to numerous international social media platforms being unavailable in China, Chinese consumers have different usage and attitude of social media from those in other countries. According to previous studies, consumers’ usage and attitude of social media can be different due to their gender. Due to these two factors, it is interesting to study gender differences in attitudes toward social media in a Chinese context. By using questionnaires, data are collected from students in Shanghai, China. By applying SPSS, analysis of the results shows that Chinese online consumers basically have positive attitude toward using social media and positively think social media influence them. Most of Chinese respondents spend more than 1 hour on social media daily. Generally speaking, Chinese consumers use social media in order to communicate with others and search for different events. As to gender difference, Chinese women are more likely to follow a famous person by using social media than men. Both men and women use Wechat and Weibo the most frequently.

I tidigare forskning saknas studier om effekten av Internet på äldres välbefinnande. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur äldres välbefinnande påverkas av vardaglig Internetanvändning inklusive sociala medier. Tio pensionärer i åldern 68-85 år i Mellansverige, varav fem kvinnor, intervjuades i ca 35 minuter var om deras subjektiva upplevelser av Internetanvändning. Intervjuerna meningskoncentrerades och analysen resulterade i fyra gemensamma drag: äldre som använder Internet och sociala medier upplever (1) positiva emotioner, (2) närhet med andra, (3) trygghet och (4) ett rikare liv. Avsaknaden av Internet däremot skulle leda till upplevelsen av tomhet och isolation. Grundat på komponenterna föreslås det att användning av Internet och sociala medier har sammantaget positiv effekt på äldres välbefinnande. Förutom detta identifierades en ny komponent trygghet som inte framkom i tidigare studier om äldres Internetanvändning.

The aim of this study is to investigate if intensive facebook usage can lead to the development depressive symptoms among young adults. The study was conducted quantitatively by distributing 65 questionnaires to students at the University of Gävle. The questionnaires were composed to test the student’s levels of self-esteem, social comparison on facebook and facebook intensity. The data collected was analyzed using IBM SPSS 20 as an analysis tool for frequency descriptions. Using the social rank, social compensation and social comparison theories, theoretical conclusions were made to verify or de-verify the hypotheses.  The study found that facebook usage in itself does not cause depression Symptoms but rather creates a platform were individuals can compare each other thereby developing feelings of envy, social anxiety, jealousy, inadequacy and inferiority. It was also found that it is not easy to tell if facebook intensity lead to low self- Esteem or individuals with low Self-Esteem tend to have high facebook intensity. The study also found that the association between facebook usage and depressive symptoms was a bit different when it came to gender.  Through this study the author hopes to contribute to the knowledge needed by social workers and parents for understanding young adult’s usage of social media and the psychological impact created by intensive use of facebook. This knowledge could be used to help social workers and parents to monitor and encourage healthy usage of social media to avoid potential problems connected to social media such as addiction, depression, anxiety, bullying and unhealthy social comparisons.   Key words: Self-esteem, Depression, Social anxiety, Facebook, subjective happiness, satisfaction with life, Gävle, Social media, Gender.

Consumers watch what a brand does, listen to what a brand says, and expect to make a meaningful connection with a brand via social media. Thus, creating effective and persuasive content on behalf of a brand to attract consumers becomes an important task for today’s marketers in social media. In this dissertation, brand information disclosure is defined as any communication of a brand’s relevant information, thoughts, and feelings, which are generated and deliberately disclosed by marketers. Further, disclosing perceived backstage of a brand by showing various behind-the-scenes information is proposed as a unique type of brand information disclosure, which is interpreted as a higher degree of brand information disclosure. Motivated by the integral role of self-disclosure in interpersonal relationships, the purpose of this dissertation study is to investigate the influence of a brand’s disclosure of perceived backstage information through social media. Specifically, this study explored how the degree and the scarcity of information disclosure would influence on consumer’s intimacy, liking, and trust toward a brand as well as consumer-brand relationship quality. Further, the study attempts to investigate the moderating role of consumer’s advertising skepticism on consumer responses. The findings from this dissertation study illustrate that degree of brand information disclosure is a significant influence on consumers’ brand evaluations and consumer-brand relationship quality in a social media environment. In addition, findings highlighted the influential role of the scarcity of information disclosure, depending upon the degree of information disclosure. Moreover, the findings evidenced how the consumer’s general advertising skepticism can play a significant role when consumers are exposed to information from the brand via social media. / text